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Transfers The Summer Transfer Edging Thread 2025

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Brian Fantana said:
Telegraph article

Bitter legal threats and personal feud fuelled Nottingham Forest move to keep Morgan Gibbs-White​

By fending off Tottenham’s advances, Evangelos Marinakis has made a major statement of intent – and got one over on Daniel Levy

Morgan Gibbs-White will wear the red jersey of Nottingham Forest this season and, for the club’s owner Evangelos Marinakis, this moment feels like a pointed statement to the powerful ‘Big Six’.

Marinakis is determined to establish Forest as a force in European football and his success in persuading Gibbs-White to reject the riches of Tottenham Hotspur is another clear sign of progress.

“At the end of the day, we always win,” were Marinakis’s words after an interview on Saturday night confirmed that Gibbs-White has signed a new three-year contract.

Tottenham are preparing for Champions League football under their new head coach Thomas Frank, who was convinced that a deal was inevitable after triggering the £60m release clause.

Yet the full details of the stormy mini-saga, which included bitter legal threats and acrimony between the owners of the two clubs, can be revealed here.

Spurs bungled release-clause activation​

After Tottenham made their move on July 10, the fall-out was spectacular. Forest were convinced that Tottenham breached certain levels of confidentiality, and there are even doubts that they matched the exact terms of the release clause.

Such clauses can be very complex, and it is understood that Tottenham fell short of activating a number of conditions.

Forest sent an intention of legal action to Spurs owner Daniel Levy, while an official complaint to the Premier League was also under consideration.

Just over two weeks later, Gibbs-White committing his future to Forest was not in the script. Marinakis flew into Portugal on Thursday with one intention – to resolve the future of his star player. Negotiations advanced quickly and on Saturday night, shortly before a friendly against Fulham, the England international had agreed to stay.

There is no release clause. There is no gentleman’s agreement to leave next summer. Gibbs-White will be the best-paid player in Forest’s history, and Marinakis views this as a major triumph.

Marinakis took Levy approach personally​

Tottenham have missed out. The message was relayed to Frank on Saturday night that the deal was off. Marinakis was simply not ready to accept losing this particular battle with Levy. He felt the nature of Levy’s approach was a slur on Forest, and what he is trying to build.

Gibbs-White is relishing the start of the new season, and the team spirit which has defined their evolution under Nuno Espirito Santo cannot be discounted.

The 25-year-old has behaved impeccably as the saga unfolded. There has been no strike action, mysterious injuries or threats of transfer requests. He has reported for training as normal and while many will argue that should be a prerequisite, other Premier League players caught in a similar situations have not always responded in that way.
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TFT...couldn't get past the wall without giving my deets though I was hoping the column would provide some answers but all it's done is made things more clear as mud and perpetuated the intrigue.
 
sudoku said:
Don't the UCL rules allow clubs to bring in an emergency replacement if a GK suffers a long term injury?
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Rule used to be :-If none of the goalkeepers are physically able to play (and we must have named minimum of 3 originally), we can register others to play in champions League as long as they are registered to play in the League also.


However believe recently changed so now if keeper is out through injury or illness for 30 days they can be replaced with another league registered goalkeeper.
 
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LeeMcl said:
Kinsky exiting on loan makes the Keely thing even more bastard insane.
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It’s alright the club have a plan so cunning it went to Cambridge to do a PhD in craftiness…

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